Dime a Dozen #26: The Return of White Weenie

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Jason Moore

White Weenie is dead.

There’s a statement that would’ve seemed much more valid a month or two ago. I mean, who in their right mind would play White Weenie, a deck that should repeatedly fold to the multiple Cloudpost strategies, the multiple Temporal Fissure strategies, and to the (arguably) most prominent deck in the format (which just so happens to play Cloudpost and Temporal Fissure congruently)? What kind of dense, illogical, ticket-wasting durdle would choose White Weenie of all things to play in a Daily Event?

Before I talk about the deck itself, I think I owe you all an explanation. How could I bring myself to do such a thing? Why would I sleeve up these harmless pet birds, fishermen (women?), and stick-throwers and send them on a suicide mission? You can find the answer by looking at this card:

Jason, this card isn’t even in your deck. I’ll explain later.

You see, Chris Davis started it. The whole thing. He began recording videos of various mono-white Ramosian Rally brews, and contemplating which shell would be superlative in housing the Mercadian Masques instant. Somehow I’d spent my entire Pauper career overlooking the card (I mean it’s not like I get paid to study these things, right?). But I can’t feel terrible, since I clearly hadn’t been the only one. Better late than never I guess.

Chris made some good points about building mono-white decks in Pauper these days. Number one was the fact that in today’s environment we’ve got to be fast and we’ve got to be brutal. No more stonewalling them with Guardian of the Guildpact and Seraph of Dawn because, how midrange of me. No.

Now we have to get our hands dirty.

Now they have to die, and the sooner they die, the better. Now we have to scratch for each victory with our rusty Mirrodin hatchets and our bird talons and our bird beaks. We have to because they’re making us. Because if we don’t, their smoky-looking wall guy is going to do a bunch of backflips, and they’re going to relocate the contents of our board (Mnemonic Wall, Ghostly Flicker and Temporal Fissure in case I’ve lost you).

So the brewing began, and I tinkered with a list that would support Rally in a respectable fashion. What resulted was a predominantly unsurprising White Weenie configuration with a few marginal specks of uniqueness.

20 Plains. My older “Bird Keepers” decks went as low as 18, but 18 earns you free tickets to Sadville by way of Mulligan Station, and you don’t really want to go there. Make sure the artwork matches, and remember: just because they’re Plains doesn’t mean they’re plain. They do stupendous things, like casting 1/1s for 1 and 2/2s for 2. Go pick your jaw up.

14(!) Turn 1 creatures. Guys, this is a Ramosian Rally deck (it isn’t, but it is). We need to Turn 1 guy Turn 2 smash them every game and do it proudly. And who’s the new guy? That’s Akrasan Squire. Alls he does is bash for 2 (or 3) early, get War Falcon to bash for 3 (or 4) early, and get some other knucklehead to bash for a lot late in the game when everyone else is so disappointingly blockable. It’s not insane, but it’s workable.

And that’s all to really talk about. Everything else in the main (and the sideboard for that matter) is stuff you’ve probably seen before. We bring in the 21st Plains whenever we go big, or in this case go medium against decks by playing 3x Aven Riftwatcher and 3x Prismatic Strands. I guess that means it’s time for the Daily Event!

But it’s not. Not yet at least because I haven’t told you why Ramosian Rally left the deck. The short answer is: I chickened out. I chickened out because Bonesplitter just enables so many things I want to be doing against the field. Things that (I think) will win more games. It lets our guys trade with Carapace Forger, Myr Enforcer, and Nivix Cyclops, swing into Mnemonic Wall and Spire Golem and connect for 3 (4 with Akrasan Squire) on Turn 2. So the Daily Event that should’ve been a fearless test of a new(ish) card ended up being a Spikey-er attempt at proving that White Weenie can still accumulate tickets.

So can it?

See for yourselves!

If there’s anything I’ve learned from playing Pauper (and Standard Pauper, and SilverBlack) it’s that “metagaming” or adjusting to “the field” is nowhere near as important as I once thought it was. What is important is practicing with a deck that both works for and makes sense to you (because it has a game plan and it wins with it), and prioritizing that above other fleeting factors.

I could probably spend a whole article talking about this, but I’ll try to summarize: I could’ve gone into that Daily Event playing Affinity, a “safer,” more proven choice. But guess what? I don’t understand all of Affinity’s matchups or sideboard plans or lines of play, and that makes it an inferior choice for me.

With this deck, with these pet birds and these axe-wielding sky cats, I feel capable. I feel secure, and I feel confident. That, ladies and germs, is worth more than most opinions or percentages you could throw at me.

Have you ever played a deck that made you feel like that? Then you know why I play White Weenie.

Great article as always Jason, as I wrote yesterday on the justsin’s last article, you guys are the real pillar of the community and of this format everyday I’m looking forward your lately works and articles about it! keep up the good job!

In your last paragraph, you’re saying that trying to adjust to the metagame is not much worth like practicing with the deck you’re used to play and you love the most. I do agree but not totally, since I think that working on your deck is itself an “adjust to the metagame”, as example take a look at your choice, what I read from your article is that you’re trying to rush out the opponent before he storms you out.

This is what I mean by “adjusting to the meta”, working hard on a deck that you rly feel your own and make it competitive in the current metagame. This is what gives me the strenght to continue testing out and to continue improve my skills on those decks who I feel mine more than others!

Hey Jason, a funny article and very well written. I like your lastest WhiteWinnie iteration, I might be trying it on tournament practice room.

Just a few questions about the sideboard, why the lonely plains on sideboard? Won’t be better the third Guardians’ Pledge? Why Rune of Protection: Black and not Obsidian Acolyte instead? Because the cycling and not dying to Geth’s Verdict?

Vermiis – I tried to explain the singleton Plains in the article but may not have done a good enough job. In some matchups we pile on the 3 drop spells from our sideboard, so I like having an additional land. It also works out that we have an additional slot to board in sometimes.

As far as Acolyte, you are correct. It can be answered by edict effects, Serrated Arrows etc. Rune has far fewer answers and theoretically keeps them from being able to win. Feel free to give the deck a shot!

I’m very new to pauper so this may be a bad suggestion but would Suture priest be a viable sideboard option for mirrors and to have a way to possibly take a little more life from the cloudpost fissure deck making a quicker kill possible? Or at the very least gain some more life against that match-up to stall longer and hope for the clock out?

Alex – Welcome to the format! Suture Priest has been a valuable sideboard option in the past, but at the time of this DE, and even right now, the mirror is not a matchup we’re all too likely to face. I wish Priest were more effective against FissurePost, but they have answers to it (like Snap, and even Serrated Arrows). For that reason I’m not sold on the card at the moment, but I’ve been wrong before. Great comment!

I think you are definitely exaggerating! You got lucky sideboard wise in the first stompy match and the second stompy pilot was clumsy to say the least.

You 4-0′d this time. Anyone who can play well with a WW will eventually get results due to variance effects. That doesn’t mean WW is a good option in the long run, in the current meta. It’s still pretty much “dead”, IMO.

Gustavo – I appreciate the comment, but I don’t think I (unintentionally) exaggerated anywhere. In the videos I openly admit that luck counteracted my misplays, and that playing WW would generally be a struggle. I don’t feel like I claimed WW was good in the current “meta” either, in fact that was part of my whole point. I’ll try to send a clearer message in future articles.

I would like to praise your attitude in the comments box.
I’m a regular reader of your articles, some are very good, some are so so, but overall I like them. But I see that people get rude in the articles very often, (very rude sometimes) and you never react aggresively, instead you are always educated, even when seriously offended.
That’s a great atitude, I really appreciate it!

the_endbringer – Nice observation. I’m glad you took time out to leave a comment! It would be helpful if you could let me know what (in your opinion) makes some of the articles good, and what makes some of them worse (this way I can try to improve the overall quality of my work).

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